- taken at a concert given at St. Thomas' Prep. somewhere around 1961-62.

from Tyrone Graham <tyronegraham@gmail.com>
date Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 4:51 PM
subject-- taken at a concert given at St. Thomas' Prep. somewhere around 1961-2.

Dear Sriyan;

Here are a couple of photographs I located recently - taken at a concert given at St. Thomas' Prep. somewhere around 1961-2 - which I would be grateful if you would forward to the surviving members of the Kandyan Dance Troupe pictured therein.

Those I remember are: Gemunu Abeysekere, Jamaldeen Jiffry (who went on to Royal, Medical College and the US), Suresh (or Dinesh) Tampoe, Crossette-Thambiah (I forget his first name) and Fazal Hameed; late Keerthi Bulankulame was in the group; Tissa Mohotti and Arun Dias Bandaranayake were also part of it, if I remember right, together with another boy whose name eludes me; yours truly completed the lineup.

Couldn't be Ivan Potger, who passed away in 1960 or 1961 - after contracting tetanus, as I recall. His mother treated us to a cake in his memory on his birthday while we were in Std. IV. I remember the occasion well because it featured the headmaster's - old Kaakka-patches Perippinayagam's - presence, and once Mrs. Potger had made her exit he executed summary punishment upon me for being blue-mouthed (we were still new to ink-pens and prone to experimentation).

Ivan occupied the first bed on the right, placed against the wall, as one entered the main dorm at Prep.; my bed came next. Some mornings he would croak out for coffee before coming fully awake to the rude shock of being at school, in the boarding. (I cannot vouch for that myself, as I was usually the last to get up; I'm simply repeating hearsay.) Some evenings he would slither over the kabook wall separating the "green" from the adjoining embassy compound, 'pult in hand, hunting; he maintained a scrap-book of bird-wings and feathers.

An older brother (or cousin), Keith, was a founder member of the Seekers, Australia's most successful contribution to "the sounds of the sixties". Another brother, Granville, was supposed to have gone adventuring in South America: another rumour which I've not been able to substantiate. The stuff of legend ...